ore or less torture
during a space of three weeks.

[Illustration: PEARY CAIRN AT CAPE MORRIS K. JESUP, AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY
MACMILLAN AND BORUP]

This was the first time in all my arctic expeditions that I had been at
headquarters through May and June. Hitherto there had always seemed to
be something more to be done in the field; but now the principal work
was completed, and it remained only to arrange the results. In the
meantime the energies of the Eskimos were largely employed in short
journeys in the neighborhood, most of them for the purpose of visiting
the various supply depots established between the ship and Cape Columbia
and removing their unused supplies to the ship. Between them these
various small expeditions did some interesting work. Most of this
supplementary work in the field was accomplished by other members of the
expedition, but I had plenty of work on board the _Roosevelt_. Along
about the 10th of May we began to get genuine spring weather. On that
day Bartlett and myself began spring housecleaning. We overhauled the
cabins, cleared out the dark corners, and dried out everything that
needed it, the quarter-deck being littered with all kinds of
miscellaneous articles the whole day. On the same day spring work on the
ship was also begun, the winter coverings being taken off the
_Roosevelt's_ stack and ventilators, and preparations being made for
work on the engines.

A few days later a beautiful white fox came to the ship and attempted to
get on board. One of the Eskimos killed him. The creature behaved in an
extraordinary manner, acting, in fact, just like the Eskimo dogs when
those creatures run amuck. The Eskimos say that in the Whale Sound
region foxes often seem to go mad in the same way and sometimes attempt
to break into the igloos. This affliction from which arctic dogs and
foxes suffer, while apparently a form of madness, does not seem to have
any relation to rabies since it does not appear to be contagious or
infectious.

The spring weather, though unmistakably the real thing, was fickle on
the whole. On Sunday, May 16, for example, the sun was hot and the
temperature high, and the snow all about us was disappearing almost like
magic, pools of water forming about the ship; but the next day we had a
stiff southwest gale with considerable wet snow. On the whole, it was a
very disagreeable day.

On the 18th the engineer's force began work on the boilers in earnest.
Four days later two Eski